Reading this morning in the blogs about Android 2.3 rumors, I can't help but sigh with the realization that it doesn't really matter to me whether Android 2.3 is released soon or not. Nor does it really matter what new features it contains. In the end, it isn't up to me to decide whether or not I'd like to take advantage of the update. The flawed business model of mobile OS is in the way. In all reality, I may never see that update and I will have nothing to say about that. Can you imagine if, in order to update Windows 7 on my laptop, I had to wait for that update to go through Dell and then Comcast? Yet that is exactly what the mobile OS industry has provided us. They've provided us with a model where in order for me to do an "Android Update" which should be as simple as a Windows 7 "Windows Update" instead I have to wait on the bureaucracies of Sprint and my phone manufacturer. What a disappointment. Yes, I know root the phone. But I don't consider that to be a viable option for the mainstream, non-techie consumer. And it shouldn't take that in the first place. Carriers need to back out of the experience all together and at least leave this between the consumer and the cell manufacturer.
Then get ready to pay full price for your phone, plus all the carriers fees, but somehow I don't think the average consumer is willing to do that. Besides it's the manufacturer that's the hold-up. They need to get the update (from Google in this case) apply their modifications and test it so it doesn't cause more problems than it solves. It is not economically viable to do that for every phone, especially the older ones that barely meet the minimum requirements, so they just let it stay at whatever version is best suited for it.
The carrier's controlling the OS updates have nothing to do with phone subsidies. Phone subsidies are all about locking in service contracts. There is no revenue link to controlling OS updates. Unless of course, you are suggesting that carriers are artificially limiting access to OS updates in order to get you to update phones quicker.
Please re-read my response. It's the manufacturers who provide the modified updates for their handsets NOT the carrier. If you bought an unlocked Samsung or HTC phone, you'd still have to wait, or worse, not get an update, regardless of carriers. My comment about the subsidies was in reference to your suggestion that the carriers get out from between the mfg. and user. Why do you believe it is the carrier who is holding up updates?
I would agree that the phone manufacturer probably can't be out of the loop like they are in the PC marketplace. However, the carriers are also adding their "touches" to the OS as well and that is where I think it getting ridiculous. My Android Market for example has a Sprint tab in it. I've got Sprint "this app" and Sprint "that app" on my phone. Those are all added to the OS updates. It was Sprint that announced no Froyo for the HTC Hero and the Samsung Moment to my knowledge - not HTC and Samsung. I think it is clear that the carriers are the final gatekeepers of the OS upgrades.
Would you rather have your mobile OS bloated beyond belief with the drivers for every possible handset it will be used on? When you update your laptop to Windows 7 it really doesn't matter that you're losing a few out of your 80+ gigs of hard drive space for drivers you'll never use or languages you don't speak. A more glass-half-full way to look at it is that for the small price of waiting a while longer, you get an OS that's been shaved down to only exactly what your device needs, thus maximizing free storage space on your phone.
This is not really different than the iOS world. With release 4.0 of iOS, Apple no longer support iPhone 2G, and iPhone 3G was practically unusable with 4.0 software. iOS 4.x is really meant to support only the 3GS and 4 models.
Except that the manufacturer replaces those unneeded drivers with their own crap... bloatware. So as far as that, it's a wash. My device doesn't need Amazon MP3, Motoblur, Blockbuster, CityID and a whole bunch of other things that I can't remove. Nor does it need Bing (a carrier inserted item; so obviously both the manufacturer and carrier get a chop on it) and VZ Navigator, yet I can't delete those. Didn't Microsoft get sued for doing stuff like that?
Yes, good point. I can see how the phone manufacturers need to be in the middle of the Google - Consumer relationship. The carriers controlling it - I am having a little bit harder time with.
I like that Google is starting to release parts of the "OS" as separate apps like GMail and YouTube. I hope that means that at least we'll be able to keep updated on those, even if we start to fall behind on the system OS.
You can blame Verizon mostly for that. They like putting stupid bloatware on their phones. Not a whole lot is Motorola's doing, except for Motoblur. But there is always root, and then you can remove them. Nice thing on my Eris, Amazon MP3 was the only real bloatware app. Old phone ftw.
